Monday, October 28, 2013

I am excited to report that there was a large and enthusiastic gathering at the second launch of "I am in need of music" and "Walking with EB," on 22 October 2013 at Massey College in Toronto. Warmly hosted by John Fraser, the Master of Massey College, the programme included remarks by Mr. Fraser, Suzie LeBlanc, Sandra Barry, Linda Rae Dornan -- and a delighteful improvisational performance by musician/composer/conductor Dinuk Wijeratne and CBC Radio 2 host Tom Allan (Tom read Bishop's poem "Sunday 4 A.M." as Dinuk accompanied on the piano. Then, what everyone was waiting for, Suzie performed two songs from the CD ("Insomnia" and "Anaphora" -- settings by Christos Hatzis). Heartfelt thanks to John Fraser and Massey College for their generous support of this project.

The next launch will happen in Ottawa on 12 November.

Suzie LeBlanc and John Fraser (photograph by Alfred Villeneuve)

On 19 October 2013, in the Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, New Brunswick) magazine Salon Focus, Mike Landry wrote a delightful feature about the CD/DVD.

Friday, October 18, 2013

In June 2013, the EBSNS launched Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop: The Elizabeth
Bishop Centenary (2011) Writing Competition. The editors have asked a some
of our readers to provide a comment, a personal response, to the collection. We
will post them over the next few weeks. We hope these readers’ responses will tempt
you to buy a copy for your own library. It also makes a wonderful Christmas
gift!

{Note: The Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia will be selling copies of ECHOES at the Great Village Christmas Craft Fair on 2 November and at the Truro Farmers' Market on 16 November.}

Image by Teresa Alexander Arab

**********

Response by Star Coulbrooke

In a recent letter, Utah
writer Star Coulbrooke wrote about reading Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop. She has
kindly given permission for us to excerpt part of that letter to post as her
“comment.”

Star wrote, “I have just finished reading, in Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop, the Mary
Verna Feehan essay. What an amazing talent for creating emotional realms of a
child’s world — I felt as if I were travelling inside the girl who was sensing
the adult surrounding of her previously insular and sheltered life, who was feeling
their sympathy and concern, with the limited knowledge of worldly behavior,
just her child’s perceptions, dreamlike and trusting. A lovely, simple piece
with deep layers of insight. I am glad to have a few minutes this morning to
delve into the book again …. I finished Echoes last Saturday and wrote about
the Anne Pollett piece in my journal, about her mother being “unshakably
positive” and always believing in the goodness of others. It was as if she were
my sister, because she described my mother’s traits. Mine died in 1999, at 88,
having never said a negative thing about anyone she ever met. She lived through
the Depression too, as Anne Pollett’s mother did, and was always grateful for
the most basic amenities. I believe she instilled that kind of gratitude in me
as well, because I have always deeply appreciated the basic comforts of my own
fortunate life.”

*****

Star Coulbrooke is responsible for Helicon West, a
bi-monthly open readings/featured readers series in Logan, Utah.
Her poems appear in journals such as Poetry International, Redactions:
Poetry and Poetics, and Sugar House Review. Her most recent poetry
collection, Walking the Bear, published by Outlaw Artists Press, is a
tribute to the Bear River. Star directs the Utah State
University Writing
Center.

Monday, October 7, 2013

What a wonderful gathering it was on Sunday afternoon, 6 October 2013, at PIPA Restaurant in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the launch of "I am in need of music," the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording presented by Suzie LeBlanc, and "Walking With EB," the documentary film by Linda Rae Dornan. It was truly inspiring and deeply moving to bring together so many of the artists and supporters of this wonderful project, a homecoming for all who gathered. I have still not fully processed all that happened, but I wanted to share some photographs of the event, taken by Susan Kerslake. Before I do that, I want to remind you that you can order the CD/DVD set from CentreDiscs: http://www.musiccentre.ca/node/77772.

Thank you to all those won attended -- it felt like a family gathering. Thank you to the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia for sponsoring this wonderful event. Thank you to the amazing artists who worked on this project. Thank you to Suzie LeBlanc and Linda for their creative visions. Thank you to Elizabeth Bishop for her transformative art.

The Atrium at PIPA -- we aspire to great heights.

The next launch is in Toronto on 22 October at Massey College. We'll be sure to post some photos of that event. There will also be a launch in Ottawa on 12 November. Stay tuned for more updates.

Friday, October 4, 2013

In June 2013, the EBSNS launched Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop: The Elizabeth
Bishop Centenary (2011) Writing Competition. The editors have asked a some
of our readers to provide a comment, a personal response, to the collection. We
will post them over the next few weeks. We hope these readers’ responses will tempt
you to buy a copy for your own library. It also makes a wonderful Christmas
gift!

When
you are as fond of a certain place as I am of my grandfather’s cabin, you’ll
know the slight feeling of dread as you pull away from it. (Aaron Holland)

There’s
something about the ocean, that makes me “me”.(Maria Duynisveld)

I
like to sit on the branch and feel the air on my neck…today I am whistling
along with the wind. Yes I can whistle. Most girls can’t. (Lauren
Kruisselbrink)

Someday,
in this place, I will pass from this world to the next.(Elizabeth Schofield)

One
day I will probably have to leave Neil’s Harbor. I’m a small town girl with big
dreams. (Dakota Warren)

In
Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop, both adult and younger writers offer withclarity and humour, an awareness of all our love and longing for what might
be home. This book is a celebration of that theme but, as befits echoes of
Elizabeth Bishop, there is awareness too of the heart’s complexity and of what
is painful and dangerous, especially in the writing from young people as they grapple with what life presents
to them. Just the title of Tiffany Vincent’s piece “On the Out [In]side Looking In[Out]” wonderfully
evokes such struggle, or Sarah Giragosian’s, The parsonage, a massive New
England colonial, has three spots from which a person can jump and possibly
land intact… But, as with Bishop, there is a rich sense that fine writing
on any theme can offer its own transcendence. There are also
beautifully-reproduced images, the small scale taking nothing from, for
example, the haunting image of “The Walker”
by Teresa Alexander Arab or the colourful delight of “Low Tide” by Joy Laking. The editors, Sandra Barry and Laurie
Gunn, have performed a great service, for contributors and readers, in bringing
this book into the world.

I
still have my In The Village t-shirt from 2011! It emerged from a
drawer on Sunday last to be worn on a walk that ended in our returning to my
own village by a road I seldom use. I saw Inistioge with new eyes and was
startled by the fresh pleasure and joy another perspective brought. Echoes
of Elizabeth Bishop has roads we haven’t walked, even though we think we
know the terrain well. No need to have worn the t-shirt to enjoy this book –
just an openness, like Bishop and Yeats, that the heart of living (and writing)
is the heart.

Image by Bruce Gray

**********

Carmel Cummins is a writer
from Co Kilkenny, Ireland.
She lives in a village called Inistioge. A poetry group that evolved from the
class given by the American poet Jean Valentine in Kilkenny in 1991 has been
the main source of support for her work. Her poems have been published
in national magazines,in The Kilkenny Anthology, (1991); Inkbottle;New
Writing from Kilkenny, (2001); and
in a chapbook, Woodstock Promenade, (2009).She was
awarded first prize in the Black Diamond Poetry Prize in 2010 and was shortlisted
for the Listowel Poetry Collection Award in 2013. Her latest publications are,
for prose, Townlands, a habitation, ed. Alan Counihan, (2012) and, for
poetry, Science meets Poetry 3,eds. Jean Patrick Connerade and Iggy McGovern, (2012) and the Kilkenny
Broadsheet, (2013). She loved her visit to Great Village
in 2011, the wonderful creativity and inclusiveness of the EB 100 celebrations,
and the privilege of staying in EB House.

5 September 2017: Nulla dies sine linea

[Today, near the beginning of a new month traditionally associated with the first day of school we begin a new feature to replace the long-running "Today in Bishop." Each day we hope to post a brief reflection on a line from Bishop's poetry, beginning with the title of the first poem in her first book, North & South. We would be happy to have contributions from the Patronage-at-Large, should anyone be so inclined.]

"The Map"

Not simply "Map": abstract, generalized, a concept more than an object, perhaps not even a noun at all, but an imperative, an imperious directive; nor yet "A Map": token of a type, a random example run across by chance, perhaps, on the dusty dark-fumed oak table in the centre of Marks & Co. once-upon-a-time during a long-anticipated visit to 84, Charing Cross Road just prior to its burial beneath a modernist glass tower, where its once-upon-a-place is now marked by a memorial plaque; no, no, no — "The Map" — unique, archetypal, redolent of all that makes it one-and-only, but also a congeries of interwoven metonymies as patterned and abundant as the sixth of the "La Dame à la licorne" Flemish tapestries ("À mon seul désir") or as Vermeer's "De Soldaat en het Lachende Meisje"— or, yet again, as the map in EB's "Primer Class."

Subscribe To

RSS Feed

Your Hosts:

John Barnstead

I retired in 2014 after forty years of teaching Russian language and literature. I'm a past president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Sandra Barry

I am a poet, independent scholar, freelance editor, and secretary of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

Suzie LeBlanc

I am a professional singer who recently became a great admirer of Elizabeth Bishop's writing. I am also fond of walking and nature and I became involved with the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary because I wanted to have her poems set to music so that I could sing them.